Video 5:52
Bill Gammage joins Stateline Canberra

Transcript

CATHERINE GARRETT: In the 1960s, Canberra author Bill Gammage produced one of the definitive works of Australian military history. His book, The Broken Years, has been reprinted a dozen times and a new illustrated edition has just been released. He spoke to hundreds of veterans of World War I, sharing their stories, their secrets and a small part of their pain.

As another Anzac Day approaches, Bill Gammage explains the importance of capturing oral histories before it's too late.

SONG: They gave me a tin hat and they gave me a gun.

And they marched me away to the war.

BILL GAMMAGE, AUTHOR/ HISTORIAN: Manning Clark once remarked that historians steal others words, that's how they make a living. That is true of the Broken Years. What it does is quote a lot of what soldiers wrote in their diaries and letters, and that's very moving I think.

SONG: And how well I remember those terrible days...

BILL GAMMAGE: You read somebody's diary, two or three years perhaps and you like them or you don't like them but you get to know them and you turn the page and it's blank, and you know that that person was killed sometimes in the middle of a battle and you think what a terrible waste it was yeah.

SONG: And five minutes flat

He's blown us all to hell

Nearly blew us right back to Australia.

BILL GAMMAGE: People have read the book and said that they are reduced to tears, some people say they cried all the way through it and so on. It was certainly very hard to write. Friends who knew me before say I'm much less cheery, much more serious now, constantly things come up that bring back a flashback to me of something that happened in the war.

And that must have been just a very mild touch of what those veterans endured for the rest of their lives. Many of them told me that they had had nightmares almost continuously since the war ended.

SONG: We buried ours dead the Turks buried theirs

And we started all over again.

CHRIS KIMBALL, REPORTER: How difficult was it for the veterans those to open up and to share those experiences with people who have never been there.

BILL GAMMAGE: They started off pretty reticent.

They'd obviously lived lives what was 40, 50 years after the war not being able to talk to anyone except their old mates when they got together for reunions and so on. And now here a young fella comes along and after a while he shows he knows a little bit about the war and they'd open up then.

CHRIS KIMBALL: All of those World War I veterans have passed on. Now the ranks of the men who fought in the Second World War are starting to thin out as well.

Do you think we will see more stories come to light as people want to share those memories before it's too late.

BILL GAMMAGE: If the First World War as a guide, and I think it is, we will get stories of some kinds. We will get the more general stories. We don't get in public the stories of the terrible things that happened, or of what was quite common in the First World War, the assessments of other soldiers. The ones that were very good and not honoured and not remember and the ones that were very bad and did get honours and remembers. So it was quite common.

CHRIS KIMBALL: How important are the oral histories?

BILL GAMMAGE: People always become curious once it's too late.

I often say to my students, "Look, you're interested in oral history, why don't you interview the boat people who came from Vietnam 1975, there are plenty of them around. Now's the time to do it." But in fact what will happen is when the last of those boat people are too old to talk, suddenly people will try and find out what it was like to be on a boat. It just seems to be part of the human condition to be curious once it's rare.

SONG: But the band plays Waltzing Matilda...

CHRIS KIMBALL: Your book, the Broken Years, it's been reprinted a dozen times now there's a new edition. Does its ongoing popularity or the interest in a book like that perhaps represent there is still a real focus and a real interest in that sort of history?

BILL GAMMAGE: I think that the trend since I began is that the First World War and indeed all wars are much more popular subjects to respond to and study now, the trend has certainly been to make wars more central to the experience of Australians. I think it's positive that we remember what those generations went to. I think it is a caution for us.

CHRIS KIMBALL: Is there a danger of militarising Australia's history?

BILL GAMMAGE: I think there's a danger that there be too much emphasis put on Anzac Day and the march as kind of entertainment rather than as a mark of respect to the people who actually were there.